The present invention refers to a method of producing a nonwoven material by hydroentangling a fiber mixture containing continuous filaments and natural fibers and/or synthetic staple fibers.
Hydroentangling or spunlacing is a technique introduced during the 1970'ies, see e g CA patent no. 841 938. The method involves forming a fiber web which is either drylaid or wetlaid, after which the fibers are entangled by means of very fine water jets under high pressure. Several rows of water jets are directed against the fiber web which is supported by a movable wire. The entangled fiber web is then dried. The fibers that are used in the material can be synthetic or regenerated staple fibers, e g polyester, polyamide, polypropylene, rayon or the like, pulp fibers or mixtures of pulp fibers and staple fibers. Spunlace materials can be produced in high quality to a reasonable cost and have a high absorption capacity. They can e g be used as wiping material for household or industrial use, as disposable materials in medical care and for hygiene purposes etc.
In WO 96/02701 there is disclosed hydroentangling of a foamformed fibrous web. The fibers included in the fibrous web can be pulp fibers and other natural fibers and synthetic fibers.
Through e g EP-B-0 333 211 and EP-B-0 333 228 it is known to hydroentangle a fiber mixture in which one of the fiber components is meltblown fibers. The base material, i e the fibrous material which is exerted to hydroentangling, either consists of at least two preformed fibrous layer where one layer is composed of meltblown fibers or of a "coform material" where an essentially homogeneous mixture of meltblown fibers and other fibers is airlaid on a wire and after that is exerted to hydroentangling.
Through EP-A-0 308 320 it is known to bring together a web of continuous filaments with a wetlaid fibrous material containing pulp fibers and staple fibers and hydroentangle together the separately formed fibrous webs to a laminate. In such a material the fibers of the different fibrous webs will not be integrated with each other since the fibers during the hydroentangling are bonded to each other and only have a very limited mobility.